I am new to this site and have to say from the qusetions and posts I've read while checking things out, you are doing a fantastic job!!

Now, my dilema. I am trying to trace my family history. I have a lot of information but now I need birth records from Italy for both sets of great-grandparents. I am not sure how to go about getting the birth acts (if I understand correctly the 'act' has more information than the 'certificate' of birth). The records I'm looking for will go back to the late 1880's - Any suggestions?

Can you give us as much detailed information as possible? What are the full names of your great grandparents, what comune/province/region were each born in? Post back and let us know so we can give you some assistance.

Hi and welcome to the forum. First off, when making your request to the comune you need to be very clear and specific about what you want. Do not use the phrase birth certificates. You want their birth acts also called an integral birth record (INTEGRALE DELL'ATTO DI NASCITA in Italian). The birth certificate gives very little information - it does not even provide the parent's names. Only the name of the baby and his or her date and time of birth. Weither you want the records for personal research or Italian citizenship, you want the Atti or Atto di Nascita (Act of birth) record. This record will provide the parents names, ages and occupations, the date and time of birth and the place of birth (which may include a hamlet name or address) and witnesses names, ages and professions (witnesses were usually family or friends). Occasionally this record may also provide the grandfather's names. (see link: i163.photobucket.com/a...apoli.jpg) That is a copy of a birth act from 1883.
Write your request in english providing as much information as possible. Make a different request for each town you need the copies from. Then go to the translation board here and ask to have your request translated to Italian. I will look up the addresses for the state civil record offices and post them here later.

Thanks for noticing that Livio and for posting the corrected link for our new member.

I'm sure we have all fallen into that trap with an unwanted parethesis. I frequently type a parenthesis as opposed to a forward slash as they are above nos 7 and 8 on my keyboard... I can't remember if the English qwerty keyboard layout is the same above the numerals. Loads of other things are different though - that I do know.

Welcome to the forum. I have a few questions for you as well. Other than your grandparents death acts, what other American documentation do you have? Have you found their ship manifests and/or placed them on a census at all? I'm sure you've heard that the best place to start is at the end (with you and working backwards). You don't want to miss any clues by ruling American records out. Besides, this will save the next generation from going through what you are going through now to find you!

Notice the birthdate? It differs by a few days from the one you have. So the next question is where did you get his birth info from? If you obtained it from the death act, then I think you may want to check a few more records. The records closet to the event is the most accurate (primary source)...in this case, the draft card may be more accurate since Giuseppe gave the info himself as opposed to someone who just reported his death.

As for Metti. Is there a possibility that it might be Meta, province: Napoli - region: Campania ? There is no Metti.

If you can let me know on the three locations I can try and direct you to the correct LDS films for you to search for the birth acts of your relatives. The Austria Venedig Piacenza films are for church records from 1799 thru 1859 so it wouldn't cover the 1880's. These are the rest of the results just for Piacenza for LDS films -

Thank you everyone for your help! I'm going to try an answer everyone's questions.. A couple of the towns I am going to take a guess at, as I got the information from their US death certificates.

for Castello, I am going to guess and say one of the (Castello D'Argile or Castello di Serravalle), I've always been told my family comes from the Emila Romagna region - although going back this far I'm really not sure.

Piacenza - I did some more diging. I have my grandmothers Italian birth ceritifcate (I am now looking for her mother), which says she was born in Fiorenzuola d'Arda so I am wondering if Piacenza maybe the region. I also have the ship manifest from when they came to the US that states Piacenza (which may not mean much)..

Metti - it is possible this is wrong, it is more information I have gotten from US death certificates. I don't have any family left who would remember.

The most documentation I have is: US death certifcates for each, I have the ships manifest for Guiseppe & Annetta Raimondi. I have not been able to locate cenus data.

The date of birth I got from his headstone at the cemetary - so I could very well be off a few days. The year is correct, I was able to match it up again the ships manifest.

....
Piacenza - I did some more diging. I have my grandmothers Italian birth ceritifcate (I am now looking for her mother), which says she was born in Fiorenzuola d'Arda so I am wondering if Piacenza maybe the region. I also have the ship manifest from when they came to the US that states Piacenza (which may not mean much)..
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This is in reply to Mdmaggie. I happened to be doing a google search on my grandfather who's name is Cesare Maccini. He was born in 1886, and possibly could be related to Maria Maccini (most likely her brother). He may have been a junior if his father's name was Cesare Maccini also. He was born in Italy, came to the United States in 1909 at age 23, and died in Massachusetts in 1918 from the flu during the flu epidemic. He was married to Adele (do not know her maiden name) also from Italy (in the hills above Milano) and that union produced three children before he died in 1918. One of those three children was my father, nee Albert Maccini, but changed to Albert Hope upon his adoption when his mother married Joseph Hope. My father's two sisters were named Irene and Helen.

Cesare Maccini's manifest on ellisisland.org says he was from "Messi, Italy" which I think is an error and is probably Metti, as stated in your post. Google Earth does not show a Messi, Italy, but it does have two results for Metti, Italy.

I have no idea if you'll ever check this post, but I thought I'd post this just in case. Cesare Maccini is buried in Blue Hill Cemetery, just outside Boston.

BHope..thank you for following up with Mdmaggie. She has listed access to her email via the icon. You may also want to try contacting her there. If you need any help contacting her, please let us know.

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